A Profile of U.S. Jobs
from the survey of
Skills, Technology, and
Management Practices (STAMP)
Michael J. Handel
Department of Sociology
Northeastern University
m.handel@neu.edu
Current Debates
I. Earnings inequality growth
A. General theories
1. Lean and mean:
Labor squeezed
2.
Flexible specialization:
Teams & ITÆrising skills
3.
Human capital:
IT (SBTC) & TeamsÆrising skills
B. Specific concerns
1. IT competence, international competitiveness
2.
"Good jobs, bad jobs" debate
3.
Worker displacement, retraining
4.
Racial/ethnic disadvantages
5.
Welfare-to-work transitions, job readiness
6.
Literacy, education reform, school quality
7.
School-to-work transitions, youth job readiness
Most or all make
assumptions about
1. Skills
2. Information technology (IT)
3. Employee involvement (EI)
…but hard data are scarce despite years of
debates
Data Gap
A.
How many jobs require what
1. cognitive and other skills
2. computer (IT) and other technology skills
3. employee involvement (EI) practices?
Or, what is the skill profile of American jobs?
B.
To what extent are skills, IT, and EI causally
related to one another (or at least
complementary) ?
C.
How are the core variables (skills, IT, EI)
related to
1. wages
2. other job characteristics
a. promotions
b. downsizing, outsourcing
c. pay and benefit cuts
d. unionization
e. effort intensity
f. job satisfaction
D.
What are the trends in
1. levels of skill, IT, and EI (A)
2. their interrelationships (B)
3. their relationships to other outcomes (C)
Measurement Philosophy
• Individual-level data to model relationships
• Objective, behaviorally concrete questions
• Externally meaningful response scales
▫ goal:
x natural units
x real-world categories (e.g., math tasks, team duties)
▫ avoid, if possible:
x vague quantifiers
x numbered rating scales
x holistic ratings
• Detailed coverage of skills, technology, EI, and others
• Cover gradations across full range of population
variability—avoid coarse scales, floor and ceiling effects
• Cover substantive content and use best methods from
diverse disciplines
▫ sociology
▫ labor economics
▫ industrial relations
▫ education
▫ occupational psychology
▫ human resource management
Survey of Skills, Technology,
and Management Practices
(STAMP)
• Two-wave, refreshed panel (N = 2,304, wave 1)
• Sample reinterviewed after 3 years, plus new
subsample
• Nationally representative, RDD telephone survey
(2005)
• Employed wage & salary workers, age ≥ 18
• English & Spanish language versions
• 166 job-specific questions, 28 mins. average
length
• Models: cross-sectional, fixed effects, career
growth, trend analyses, test-retest reliabilities
Next
Extensions
• Possible future waves—social indicators for
trend-monitoring
• Possible link to employer data
▫ Organizational structure, strategy, resources
▫ Employer policies (promotion, training)
▫ Employer-perceived skills gaps
▫ Technology
▫ Employee involvement practices
• Link to employee test scores—e.g., PIAAC
▫ Improve understanding of relationship between
scores and job functions
▫ Important adjustment in analyses, e.g.,
measuring under- and over-education
▫ International comparisons